


Last Request

by DreamingofEire



Category: True Blood
Genre: Coda, F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-12-14 08:47:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11779587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamingofEire/pseuds/DreamingofEire
Summary: Following his death on the rooftop, Sookie tries to fulfill Godric's last request.





	Last Request

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this ages back, don't think I ever posted it anywhere. Decided to dust it off. I remember this episode leaving me feeling a bit emotionally unfulfilled. This was my response to it.

Sookie watched the last traces of ash, the last traces of Godric, drift away in the morning breeze. He had looked so at peace. She was grateful she had been there; glad she had been able to ensure that he wasn’t alone in the final moments of a very long existence.

Wiping her eyes, her thoughts turned someone who she was certain was not feeling peaceful, and was probably feeling very much alone. She made her way down the stairs, unsurprised to find that her hands were shaking and her knees felt like spaghetti. She pushed open the metal door that opened into the stark concrete service hallway. 

Eric sat, slumped against the wall, elbows braced on his knees, head bowed, hands tangled in his hair. For the first time she felt no hesitation in approaching him. Seeing this proud, arrogant, stubborn man so broken, in her mind it just wasn’t right. She stopped before him, but he didn’t move.

“Eric,” she finally said, her voice a bare breath of sound in the silent hallway.

He looked up, and her heart broke. His pale face was streaked with blood tears, his hair disheveled. In his eyes, those glacier blue eyes, usually coolly assessing or mocking, she saw a single flare of desperate hope. She saw his hope that she could make it go away, that she would say it had all been a horrible dream. Then she saw the hope die and turn to crushing grief, as he read in her face what she couldn’t say aloud.

She knew this pain; had first felt it when she was eight, then again just a few weeks ago. Before she knew it, she was on her knees beside him, catching his hands in hers, anxious to comfort him in some way.

“Oh, Eric. I am so sorry,” she whispered, meeting those blue eyes unflinchingly. With a harsh, strangled sob, the tears came again. His hands tightened on hers, even as his body tensed against the wall behind him, shaking, instinctively trying to find some sort of escape from the stark reality of the situation.

“No,” he gasped between wracking sobs, and broken phrases in a language she didn’t understand. “Godric…no.”

“Hey, come here,” she said softly. She gently coaxed him closer, slipped her arms around him and held him. After a moment’s resistance, his arms went around her, and she felt the cool wetness of his tears on her skin as he buried his face in her shoulder.

“That’s it,” she murmured. “Go on and feel it. Hurts a lot less than keeping it in. I’ve got you.” She held him in silence, knowing there were no words to make it better. She carded her fingers gently through his hair, unaware of the tears that dampened her own cheeks.  
When he had become calmer, she stood, pulling six feet of unresisting vampire up with her. She looked up into his face, unsure if her was really seeing her.  
“It’s well past dawn. You should be asleep. “ He followed her without a word; shoulders slumped, eyes staring sightlessly at the floor. She was vaguely aware that his room was down the hall from her and Bill’s. Gingerly, she fished in his the pocket of his jeans for his room key, and found that he was just three doors away. With the vampires having just gone to bed, and the humans still asleep, the hotel corridors were deserted. Sookie guided him into the elevator and pushed the button. As they began a rapid descent, he stumbled, and she caught his arms steadying him. She knew that, despite his emotional turmoil, the sun was pulling at him, making his body sluggish and uncoordinated. This, combined with the emotional and physical shock of losing his maker…his friend, made for one off balance vampire. He had seemed to be almost sleepwalking, unresisting, nearly catatonic, as she led him through the hotel. Now, she kept his hand in hers as the elevator doors slid open, offering what support and strength she could. 

When they reached his room, she found she was grateful to have something to do. She pushed him down to sit on the edge of the bed, and then popped a bottle of Tru Blood in the microwave. While it heated, she divested him of his jacket and shoes. Retrieving the blood, she shook it gently as she returned to the bed.  
“Drink it,” she said firmly.  
He blinked, managing to focus on her and the bottle in her hand long enough to shake his head.  
“Not hungry,” he said softly.  
“I didn’t ask if you were hungry,” she said, with a pang, hearing Gran’s voice in her head. “You were hurt in the explosion and tonight’s been a rough night all around. Drink it.”

Evidently realizing that doing as she told him would take far less energy than arguing, he took the bottle from her and drank reluctantly. Pleased, she didn’t push the issue when he set the bottle aside after only finishing half of it. While he’d been occupied she had raided the bathroom for a washcloth. Now, she stood between his knees, with him seated on the bed, they were nearly at eye level, and used the warm, wet cloth to wipe away the scarlet tracks that covered his face. He closed his eyes at the touch and she thought, she hoped, she felt some of the tension ease from him.

“Lie down,” she urged. “Get some rest.” She wished she could tell him it would feel better when he woke, but she knew the first moments of waking with a broken heart were dreadful. What the mind tried to forget in sleep only seemed worse when consciousness returned. She remembered clearly waking the day after Gran’s death, and that one breathless moment when she could believe it was just a dream, before cold, hard reality kicked in.

He lay down on his side, knees tucked up, curling around his pain, somehow managing, despite his size, to look fragile. She perched on the edge of the bed, and reached out to smooth his hair. What to say? Wishing him a good night just seemed stupid, not to mention cruel.

“Go to sleep,” she finally said quietly. “I’ll come see you tonight.” With those inadequate words, she made to rise, intent on leaving him alone to rest and grieve in private.  
As she stood, he caught her hand, and she looked back, surprised.

“Sookie,” his voice was raw. “Please. Don’t leave.”

She stared down at him, a dizzying swirl of emotion rushing through her in the space of a heartbeat: surprise, the thought of how Bill would react, fear, and a distinct flush of embarrassment as she recalled her dream from last night. Then she blinked and all she could see was the lost, lonely, hurting man in front of her.

“Of course,” she said quietly. She kicked off her shoes and lay down beside him, facing him, taking his hands in hers. She held his gaze, just being there, being with him, until his eyes finally drifted shut. She did her best to fulfill Godric’s last request.


End file.
